An amazing, emotional show (Part 1 of 2)

I saw an amazing and very interesting show (part of a series) on PBS called This Emotional Life.  &, yes, it was very emotional to watch and drew a strong reaction to my own feelings.  You can see the website at http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/home   This is a 2 part post.  I will discuss the other part later in a week or 2. 

There was an episode where a student was cyberbullied and belittled at school.  They never give any personal details of the bully (to protect him, I would imagine), but it was terrible and heart-breaking what he did !   Seeing this emotionally crushing, tragic episode, all I could think about was hurting this bully back - literally breaking his bones and forcing him to understand the immense damage he did to this poor 8th grade boy. I knew from the start of the episode the victim would die and had a sinking feeling through the whole episode, b/c they referred to the victim in the past tense.

What's interesting was that I was bullied when I was younger. But it never reached the humiliation and soul-crushing deeds that occurred in the episode I watched. & when I watched the episode, I was never like, "Yeah that's what Paul, Marty or Dean did to me".  When I think of what was done to me way in the past, I just shrug my shoulders with no emotion at all, it was part of my childhood, part of me growing up.  More importantly, the kids who messed with me are completely different now. What I watched on This Emotional Life may have drew a strong reaction b/c of what happened and what I witnessed recently about 6-8 years ago (first in 2003 and again even worse in 2005; I did not recall or relate either problems from either year while I watched this sad episode).  Sadly, I can't discuss too much of it, b/c people can do background searches on me and use it in the wrong context. 

The victim was an 8th grader, Jeffrey Johnston, who was smart, nice, and understanding (like they all are, it seems).  He had friends and was not a loner.  More poignantly, in the last weblink below, it explains that Jeffrey never demonized the bully and repeatedly, frequently tried to make peace with him.  Jeffrey's friends worked on their own computer project, I'm not sure if it was a blog but it was a project to show their writing and artistic talents.  The only way to get into the project and make a contribution to it (as the victim did) was to know a password.

  Somehow the bully found out the password.  He promptly erased all of the victim's hard work, his articulate, well-thought out work and wiped it out. Then in a perverse coup' de gras'  he added insult to injury and wrote a bunch of insults about him ("Billy is a fag" "He should just give up and die" sort of remarks).  It makes me physically sick writing about this.  How someone would take something that meant so much to this artistic adolescent and totally shit on it and ruin it. This turned out to be a cataclysmic turning point for the victim.  The victim's friends were interviewed.  They all stated that after that incident, the 8th grade kid withdrew.  He stopped reaching out to his friends.  The episode pointed out a sad irony - when he needed his friends the most, he withdrew, and he never got the help he needed.  His personality literally changed after the bully attacked the artistic work he did on his special website.  His parents saw the change and tried but could not do enough to save him.

He graduated from 8th grade.  The summer came.  His mom made plans to one day to go to an amusement park and it almost seemed like the victim looked forward to it. 

But the very day that he was to go to the amusement park, his poor mother woke up in the morning.  She opened the door to his room, and there he was........Jeffrey Johnston hung himself.  He was dead, and his poor mother quickly realized it was too late to try and save his life.  The mother, that courageous, amazing woman was the one who described going in there and seeing her dear son dead. This kind, sweet artistic adolescent killed himself.

He wrote a suicide note.  Don't blame the bully he said.  It blew me away that he showed little bitterness towards his tormenter.  Nearly similar to  when someone everyone knows said 1078 yrs. ago, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do!" 

Jeffrey Johnston said, blame NO ONE.  Don't blame him, because that's the way life is.  People getting hurt by those who are stronger is a fact of life, it happens millions of times in millions of places.  Yet, that amazing, world-changing mother, Debbie Johnston, proved him wrong in one respect.  She called her legislators, she called then-Governor Jeb Bush, she testified, she held rallies.  Through all her hard work, Debbie Johnston helped pass "Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up for All Students Act" (Fla. Stat. section 1006.147).  It was signed by Governor Crist in April, 2008.  (See http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?id=2109&s=latestnews ) Debbie Johnston showed that bullying isn't a fact of life or an inevitable right of passage for susceptible kids in Florida. 

The great unanswered question was this:  what happened to the bully??    What was his reaction when he heard of the boy he tormented hanging himself?  Did he take any responsibility whatsoever?  Did someone get revenge on him? (I highly doubt it)  Did someone's horrible, UNNECESSARY death change him in any way, shape or form ? ? ? ? ?  Is it possible that he watched the episode showing the harm he committed?

Is there anything we can do to minimize bullying ?

Clearly, this is an amazing story what happened in Florida.  If you have an interest, please see

http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/home  -this actually relates to the series I saw on PBS

http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?id=2109&s=latestnews

http://jeffreyjohnston.org/docs/Debbie%20Johnston%20Vita.pdf

http://jeffreyjohnston.org/

Jeffrey, I hope you are in heaven as we recall the tragic end of your life.